Introduction

In 2001, a man called John Moore (Big John, top-man, and all around good-egg) organised a fly-in to Bembridge airfield on the Isle of Wight. It proved so successful, that it was set up again in 2002, this time at Sandown airfield. You can read all about the event at it's dedicated web-site, which is www.wightparty.org.

This story has been read times since 9th July 2002

Getting to the Isle of Wight

G-TRYK was still waiting for a permit to fly when Friday, 28th of June dawned clear and bright, but I had nominated Sandown as a test airfield so there was nothing to stop me and mini-me (my 18 year old son Steven) from going.

We fly from a tiny farm strip called Frieze Hall, and when we arrived there with the Tryk in tow it was deserted. An hour later, we had rigged her for flight and stowed the gear in the pod. Well, I say stowed, but a more accurate description would be stuffed it all into every spare nook and cranny. It took us three attempts to get it all in, and even then we had to severely cut down the amount of clothes we could take to make it fit and stay under the Maximum Take Off Weight (MTOW).

I took off solo at about lunchtime, and did a quick circuit to check she handled fine and didn't have an excessive takeoff roll, then in climbed mini-me and we set off for real.

I had decided on passing to the East of London, then around the bottom of the Gatwick CTA, and the miles rolled past uneventfully. The cloud base was at about 2000' and we had a 10 mph tailwind component so we were humming along quite nicely at about 70 indicated.

This was the first cross country the Tryk had ever flown, as she only had about 10 hours test flight logged, but I have to say she performed flawlessly. I now believe the GPS is the best tool ever invented (apart from several of the more esoteric sex-aids, obviously) and my Garmin Pilot III was superb as it clearly showed by the various airspaces I bypassed en-route. I had no trouble following our route on the half-mil chart too, so if the GPS went down I would not be forced to make a practise PAN call....you know the one? "Temporarily unsure of my position?"

We approached at Sandown at about 1400, and I realised I had no more excuses.....I had to use the radio for real at last! I had practised what I was going to say en-route, much to the amusement of mini-me, so I keyed up and began:

"Sandown - Golf Tangee Romeo Yankee Kilo"

Tangee? Where the hell did that come from? I had been pretty sure I had the registration down pat, but my tongue betrayed me at the last minute!

"Golf TANGO Romeo Yankee Kilo, pass your message", came the heavily emphasised reply. Right, though I, that's the cock-up out of the way, so now I can get on with it.

"Golf Tango Romero Yankee Kilo is a flexwing microlight, inbound to you blah blah blah, requesting airfield information."

Oh for Christ's sake! First Tangee, now Romero! Fortunately, as most readers will know, this kind of RT mistake is expected to be made by Tyro's, and is tolerated - probably with a little amusement! How many of you on the ground had your radios switched on and had a little chuckle, I wonder?

Spamfield - the weekend

Anyway, I did one of my usual 'one-wheel-at-a-time' landings, which I thought was crap, but mini-me thought was just fine. I was quite surprised to find we were one of the first to arrive, and just as I was shutting her down up walked Kevin "Factory Fit" Armstrong and Kevin "3-planes" Taylor to introduce themselves and say nice things about my aeroplane. These were the first 2 of many, many people whom I know only through the internet that we were to meet over the weekend, which was fantastic. In fact, most of the time was spent shaking hands and saying "Hi" to people. Sadly, as I'm slowly becoming a bit of an old git, with the fading memory to match, I'm afraid I'll not remember faces to go with names next time. If so, I apologise in advance! My wife had made up a tee-shirt and sweatshirt for me with my name and registration embroidered on the front - so even if people forgot my name, one glance down was all it took to remember! Actually, over the days to come these garments did attract a certain level of piss taking, as it must have seemed that every article of clothing I own was marked up in this way - including the flying suit, obviously!

The little umbrella tent I bought went up in 30 seconds, and we got all out gear stowed away before wandering down to watch other people's landings. I never realised before what a great spectator sport that is, and I whiled away a couple of hours in the glorious afternoon sunshine, not realising the backs of my calves were burning!

The weekend whizzed by in nothing flat, and I'll not write about it as this has already been done by others. Suffice it to say there was music, drinking, socialising and moaning about the understaffed bar!

No no, gentle reader, the point of this story is to talk about "Carry on France". Whassat then? I hear you ask. Well, when Big John organised Spamfield 2002, he intended to fly over to Germany for a little holiday afterwards, so he suggested people might like to come along as far as Abbeville for some 'channel crossing' experience. Those who were already planning to go volunteered to help people with their flight plans, which removes the scariest stumbling block for most who haven't done it before (well, scariest apart from actually flying over 22 miles of water!). I was up for this as soon as I heard about it, and decided to use Abbeville as the first stop if a nice cross country down through France to the Loire Valley, to visit my instructor Reg Whittall at his training school in La Fleche. I though I might as well see if anyone else wanted to come along, as it's far more fun travelling in company, and after about 3 months there were 6 planes registered to go so it looked like being fun. As the Spamfield weekend loomed ever nearer, there were a staggering 66 people in 44 aircraft registered for the trip. An endless chain of emails went back and forth between Reg and myself, organising the logistics as he geared himself up to feed 66 people via two enormous, half-an-oil-drum barbeques, which he made specially.

Heading for Headcorn

The original plan called for the Carry on France contingent to head for Headcorn on Monday, then stage out across the channel in small groups. However, a glance at the weather charts showed it all turning to poo by Monday ('scuse the technical, meteorological term), so it had been decided to leave Sandown on Sunday instead. I was awoken at 0600 by the roar of engines and the smell of 2-stroke oil, as plane after plane lifted off into the clear morning sky. I hadn't realised people would be going so early, but many had long trips home and had to ensure they didn't get locked in by the weather. The stream of aircraft taking off carried on for what seemed like hours, and it was later reported that the airfield received a single complaint about the noise. That's right - just one, so not too bad, considering!

Mini-me and myself started loading up the plane, but decided we'd breakfast before leaving. This was easy, as we had a bunch of spicy, peppered burgers left from our Supermarket run on Friday, and a disposable barbeque to cook them on too. The smells of cooking wafted over the tent next to ours, from which emerged Colin Pearce and Sam Ram, sniffing hungrily! We had more burgers then we could eat, so we cooked up the rest and settled down for the usual 'getting to know you' chat, during which I discovered they were registered for the Loire trip too, so deciding to fly in company seemed a no-brainer!

Flight plan? What Flight Plan!

Les Cottle had been arranging the Headcorn side of things, and the airfield had graciously waived landing fees for the event. However, Les was nowhere to be found, so it was with some trepidation that we made our way into the ATC shed to find Jamie (the man with the plan). As soon as it became apparent to him that we had no idea what to do, he simply filled the form in for us before faxing it off to where the hell they go. Fantastic - we had a departure slot booked for about an hour, so we grabbed a coffee and fuelled the planes, then started to get ready.

It was at this point that we met Kevin and Sheila Tuck, who were also going to the Loire but could not find the people they had arranged to fly with. They slotted in with us, even though their Thruster would have to circle periodically to allow us to keep up. 'Circle periodically?' How prophetic those words seems now....read on and all will become clear.

Magical Mystery Tour

Colin took the lead in his Blade and we took off into the clag. After several minutes of flying I called up Colin and asked him if there was any particular reason we were heading due North. After a brief pause, the reply came back "Just checking", and G-MZCU began a gentle (in fact almost indiscernible) turn to the East.

In fact so gentle was the turn that we ended up hitting the Wash then flying all the way around the Kent coastline to arrive overhead Dover after about 50 minutes flying. By this time, Kevin and Sheila must have been dizzy from doing so many orbits to keep us in sight, but it was finally time to bite the bullet. I checked my fuel and did some quick calcs. The Tryk was burning waaaay too rich at this point (20 litres an hour!!!!), but I could reach Abbeville with 30 minutes fuel left, so I called to the others "Yankee Kilo going feet wet" (Yeah, I know, I watch too much telly!) and we headed out over the water.

Feet wet? I hope not!

Sadly, I have no photos of my own of the wonderful vistas, as we realised the camera was packed, instead of dangling in it's rightful place around Mini-Me's neck!

We were making a good 70 mph ground speed, so gobbled up the 22 miles in what seemed like a blink of an eye. Approaching the French coast, we saw the familiar unbroken cloud down at 2000, so started dumping height to go underneath. Hey guys, guess what? Time for some more RT! Got Lille no problem, but the first thing they asked me to do was 'squawk 6100'. Fortunately, I knew what they meant so wasn't tempted to make chicken noises into the radio! However, after informing then I was None-transceiver, they advised me to switch to the Abbeville frequency and continue VFR flight. Gosh! Not only have I now spoken to a grand total of three airfields on the radio, but I also understood what they wanted - this stuff's easier then I thought it would be. Kevin later told me I sounded pretty good too, which made my day!

Colin and Sam in the Blade stayed in visual range at all times as we continued inland at 1500 feet, but of Kevin and Sheila in their Thruster G-CBGV there was no sign. Randomly searching under the cloud would clearly be pointless, so we pressed on, eventually arriving at Abbeville after a total of 2 and a half hours in the air, and I had the predicted 10 litres left in my tank too (which was nice!).

Abbeville - gateway to the Loire

It started to get very boring at the Motel, but it livened up a bit when people tried to book rooms for that night. No rooms free, they were told, as a large contingent of ULMs (French for Microlight) was expected from the UK. Fortunately, I knew Les Cottle had made the booking and that one of the rooms was for me. Knowing his name was the magic word, so we got our room guaranteed for that night. Others saw me do this, and a surreal kind of "I'm Spartacus" scene ensured as everyone tried to convince the hotel staff that either they were Les Cottle, or that they were at least in his party! We told the staff it was very unlikely any of those who had originally booked would make it that day, and the staff agreed to release the remaining rooms at 1800.

The second thing to alleviate the boredom of the day was Sam Ram - a man of immense social skills guaranteed to make him the life and soul of every party. He spent the afternoon wowing everyone with his huge repertoire of magic tricks, and making everyone groan with his equally huge repertoire of daft one liners.

e.g. "I speak a bit of Spanish - Muchas Gracias Penis"

"What's that mean then Sam?"

"Thank you very much, Cock"!

A night on the town

Towards late afternoon, everyone was getting very bored so someone organised some taxis to go into town. Well, 'some' turned out to be 'one' - it seems Abbeville isn't large enough to support more then one taxi! Off we went in shifts, each lot taking careful note of the driver's phone number so we could get back later, as Abbeville is about 5 klicks from the aerodrome.

We all more or less met up again at a bar in town, where most of the afternoon was spent drinking (quelle surpise) and bullshitting (ditto). I managed to chat with a couple of people who know the Rotax 582 well, who advised me to check the needle setting, as it was likely to be too high, thus explaining the average consumption of 20 litres per hour, so there was even some useful stuff to come out of the day!

Eventually, we all separated to wander around the shops, and Sam, Colin, me and mini-me and Frank Spiniello ended up in a Chinese restaurant, where Frank had the misfortune to order the smallest dish on the menu - ironic, as he's quite a large chap! The food was OK, but the bar next door with a pool table had closed by the time we'd finished, so off we trotted again looking for further entertainment.

We found a barge floating on a river with a bar sign hanging outside, so in we went! We probably found the nearest thing to a club that Abbeville has, and it was certainly more atmospheric then what we'd seen so far. The portholes at each table looked out over the river about two inches above water level, which was slightly surreal as it meant we were sitting below water level.

At the next table, there were two teenage girls (16 and 18 as it later turned out), and after 5 minutes Sam couldn't resist and started hitting them hard with his magic. Astonishingly (considering that apart from mini-me our age range was mid 30s to early 50s) we ended up sitting with them and chatting as best we could. Sam uses an interesting linguistic technique, which involves talking perfectly normally in English and expecting everyone to understand. Incredibly, it seemed to work! (Well, sometimes, anyway)

Well, as we needed an early(ish) start, we decided it was time to head back. We asked one of the girls to call the taxi driver, and he said he'd finished working for the evening! Aaaargh! The girls agreed to walk us into town to try and find another, but it became very clear there was just the one man so the girls suggested they take us to the police station. This was very brave, as Sam was in fine fettle and perhaps a touch on the loud side by now, and they were a little concerned over the police reaction to us all. They needn't have worried, as Sam toned it down (well, a bit anyway), but it was all to no avail, as the police said there was no way we could get back other then to walk.

Bugger!

The girls, who had already gone out of their way for us, walked back across town again to see us on the right road. During this little trek, Sam flagged down a passing motorist who turned out to be none other then the Mayor of Abbeville! Sadly, he did not seem to feel his civic responsibility extended to driving us back the the aerodrome, so if he ever comes round my way looking for a lift I shall say "Oi, Mayor of Abbeville, No!".

Cross country in the middle of the night

After walking for about an hour we ended up at a motorway toll booth, and it became apparent we had taken a wrong turn. A quick chat with a man in the booth yielded the proper direction, but none of us felt like walking back in the huge circle of roads so we guessed that a light in the far distance was the aerodrome and set off cross country. The journey in brief was as follows:

All the fields, needless to say, were heavily irrigated, so we were all soaked and muddy from the knee down when we reached out destination, which proved to be a brightly lit area of seemingly derelict caravans. After a brief confab, we struck off to the left. We walked, and walked and walked some more. After we'd walked for half an hour, we were on the verge of giving up and trying the other way as it was black as pitch and starting to rain heavily, when - against all the odds - a passing car stopped in response to our thumbing! A tiny car, driven my a young French girl at 0100 in a deserted, unlit country road, and she stopped to pick up 4 strange men - don't think that would happen in the UK! She agreed to take us to the aerodrome and seemed to know where it was, so drove on.

The car, at any speed over 30, swayed alarmingly from side to side - dunno if it was 'pilot induced' or inherently divergent in yaw (he he), but as it was pissing down, we didn't care! After driving for several minutes, she muttered that we were going the wrong way and turned round. Several minutes later she pulled over next to a MacDonalds advertisement. "There's one of those right outside the motel", said I....sure enough.....there stood the motel, totally unlit, and about 50 feet from the caravans where we had emerged from the field!

After giving our profuse thanks, we all collapsed into bed.

Unknown to us, Mike (Micromike) Hurn, Chris Hasell and Frank (plus some others I think) had a similar taxi problem on leaving the bar to go the their Abbeville hotel, which was several klicks the other side of town. They were lucky enough to get a lift too, but their driver stopped halfway to open a boot full of booze, and started passing it around! Needless to say, or brave boys thought it was their duty to help out with generating some empties, so it was quite some time later when they got home (about 0400 I think, compared with our measly 0130). One interesting aside from their part of the tale is that the French lads (for they were young) pointed out a nearby bin for the empties. Can you imagine UK youngsters doing that? No, neither can I!

Abbeville - the next day

We didn't emerge from our pits until gone 1000 on Wednesday morning, and there was no change in the weather. Most people were still about, but there was much talk of heading back to the UK to avoid the fronts pushing in from the West. We hung around all day (many people did depart during the day) then decided if we were to stay another night we wanted to make our own entertainment, so we did a supermarket run to stock up on food and booze. You can see what the sky was like from this picture of Sam (left) and Colin, taken on the way taken on the way.

On the way back we saw two flex's take off and head south. Bugger it, we said, if they can do it so can we. We ate as much as we could before takeoff, on the theory that once you've eaten the food it ceases to count against MTOW (Maximum Takeoff Weight), loaded what was left into every spare corner, and took to the air. This picture is of the go-kart track at Abbeville, sadly not in use while we were there or we would have had a go!

The wind on the ground was about 15-20, but it was straight down the runway. Just south of Abbeville is a military, low-level corridor, which we have to cross at 2000' AGL or better, and up there the headwind was 30 mph, so we were only making 30 groundspeed. Strangely, although the wind was strong, the air was totally smooth and the flying very pleasant. After discussing it on the radio, we decided to do a little formation flying - first time I've done that and what fun it is too. Flying alongside, then descending and passing underneath to come up the other side. Mini-me was fantastic in his observer role, as I asked him to keep Sam's Blade in sight at all times.

We were heading for Mantes, but had set off late and the strong headwind made it clear we would not get there before dark. Time to head for the alternate, which was Etrepagne about 3 miles to our south west. A private airfield and strictly PPR, but we felt sure we'd have no problems with any staff on the ground given the strong winds. As it turned out, the field was deserted but the single runway was at 45 degrees to the wind. Fortunately, there was a big taxiway directly head to wind, so I did a low pass to check the surface. Mini-me absolutely loved it as we roared across the field at 70 mph 3 feet off the deck before climbing steeply away. I believe "Wheeeeee" was the exact phrase I heard in the headset! Before anyone moans at me for being dangerous, remember I said the wind was strong but steady, and the land around the field was totally flat so I knew there'd be no rotor to slam us in.

Around we went for one of my better landings, then taxied off into the shelter of the lee of a huge hanger to pitch the tents for the night. There was no-one about at all, so it was a good job we'd stocked up in the supermarket. That night saw a bottle of wine, another of scotch and another of Port consumed by the 4 of us, accompanied by all manner of interesting nibbles and hours of swapping lies.

The following morning dawned clear, bright and calm. Then, after I woke up and the dream faded, the morning dawned again. This time with an angry, leaden sky and wind that kept the sock horizontal and snapping like a school kid cracking a wet towel. Off we went into the tiny village to find some coffee (successfully) and a weather report (also successfully, but with much pidgin French and requests for repetition). Basically, it was not set to improve that day, and Colin voiced a desire to press on. It was at this point that I made a 'go' decision which, in hindsight, was probably wrong, but that turned out OK. I was very nervous as we taxied out in winds so strong I needed mini-me's help to keep the wing level (very carefully dead-level - if I'd dropped the windward wing, I'd never have got it off the ground again. I watch Colin's climb out carefully, and he seemed to bounce around no worse them on a thermic day, so I nailed the throttle and went for it.

We were only 10 miles from Mantes, but got caught in heavy showers on the way. On idle with the bar pulled fully in we were going up at 1000' per minute at one point, only to descend moments later at nearly 2000' per minute. At the same time the wing was being thrown from 45 degrees of left bank to 45 degrees of right bank. When I found I had a death-grip on the bar and my shoulders were screaming in agony, I recalled what so many pilots have told me about flying in bad weather: "Let the plane do what it wants and only correct the bad ones." I took a deep breathe and tried to relax, and it all got an order of magnitude easier!

After half an hour, we reached Mantes. All thoughts or radio went out of the window, as the velcro on my bar-mounted PTT (Push to Talk) had broken the previous day, and there was no way I was going to fly with one hand whilst reaching for the radio with the other! Colin went in first, down the runway which was nearest to head-to-wind. The wind kept backing and veering through about 15 degrees according to the sock, but I later realised that was eddies caused by the hangers, trees, etc. (Note: On re-reading this I now realise that the planes were  subjected to the self same eddies!) The people on the ground later told us that Colin appeared to have been winched down out of the sky, with almost no forward motion apparent! There was a large wood to the North of the runway, and as Colin turned finals he hit massive sink. Fortunately, his PTT was working fine, and he called to warn me. Righto Son, I said to mini-me, we're going in hot! Wound up the revs and pulled the bar in, expecting to be yanked down by the sink. It seems I got the power speed combination right, because the approach was normal, even though it should have been incredibly shallow. It got much hairier down near the ground, with the plane wanting to go first one way, then the other, so I increased power and held off at about 60 feet until it stabilised, then burned it in. The second the wheels touched I pulled that bar back so hard I'm sure I bruised my stomach, and cut the power. There was one small bounce then she stayed down.

Just after turning finals, I noted out groundspeed at 20 on the GPS, with an IAS (Indicated Air Speed) of 65 at that point. 45 mph wind? Gulp! At runway level it was 30-35, but we got down safely!

On the ground, safe and sound

People were already out and about on the strip. I later discovered this is because the wind had flipped Chris Hasell's Flash upside down (you know? The one with the Smart Deisel engine? ;-D), and they were helping him to right it. He got away with it though - the damage was limited to two deformed battens, a cracked spat and the kingpost aerial destroyed.

As Colin derigged his Blade, The Gliding Instructor/Examiner came over to me and asked if I'd like to hanger mine rigged - ahhh, the advantages of flying a French aeroplane!

The kingpost fit in the hanger by the tiniest of margins, and here she is sitting next to several hundred thousand pounds worth of gliders. Some of those ships have a glide rate of 60:1! Wow! I will be doing a trial flight in a glider at some point. I never want to own one, as I'm a devoted petrol head, as it were, but a ride would be good.

We went into the clubhouse where, unsurprisingly, we had a nice, relaxing beer or two!

Mike Hurn in his Quasar G-MYKS was here too, as I mentioned earlier he and Chris had set off from Abbeville together the previous day.

We sorted out some food for the evening and walked down (literally down - as the hill was the steepest and longest I've ever seen - worst coming back up it later, believe me) into the town. After a beer or too there, we managed to pick up some wine in a Boulangerie (I know - it seemed unlikely to me too) and went back to the airfield to do it justice.

After another very pleasant evening in good company, the next morning really did dawn bright and clear, with only about 5 mph of wind. Over breakfast, Sam showed Mike the matchstick game (yet another stonker from his seemingly endless supply, but played with peanuts because we could find no matchsticks). After that, off went Chris for a test flight with his newly profiled battens, while we took it in turns giving pleasure flights to the people who had helped us the previous day. I took up a young lad who was there on a gliding course, and who seemed hell bent on standing on my pod (strictly no-step, that bit!). I ended up taking hold of his ankle and placing his foot where I wanted him to put his weight. The second passenger I took up was a young French girl who spoke excellent English. As the Tryk's wheels left the runway, she squealed with delight (it's been a while since I've had that effect on anyone!). She told me she expected it to lumber into the air no faster then a glider, instead of which we went up like a rocket. It was only about 600'/minute, as I had full fuel on board, but hey - her opinion, not mine!

It was Mike's passenger who got the best ride, as he took her up to 2000' then spiralled back down to the deck before flying her along the river.

Finally, Loire-bound

So it was now Thursday afternoon, and the conditions allowed us to continue our journey to La Fleche. Colin and Sam fuelled up the Blade (Blimey, that Avgas at one pound per litre really hits your pocket, doesn't it?)

We decided to split the 128 mile journey into two legs, landing at Mortagne for more fuel, as we had a head wind component. It was very pleasant flying, and the slightly thermic conditions went almost unnoticed by comparison to the weather the previous day!

Here we are on the ground at Mortagne, only to discover it was unmanned and the fuel pumps locked up! Chris had plenty of fuel, as he was solo and both he and Mike had a 25 litre can in the back seat, so he split the contents between Colin and I and we decided we could make it with some careful flying.

About an hour and a half later, we made it to La Fleche, each of us having just under 10 litres on board. Colin had a nasty moment passing Le Mans, when his engine coughed and he thought he'd run her dry, but she picked up and got him the rest of the way. This picture of Le Mans was actually taken on the way back, but who cares - right?

Half an hour after landing, Reg turned up at the airfield to take us back to his place. Here's the 'squadron' on the ground at La Fleche, just to prove we made it!

We had to make a couple of trips to get all our gear back too, but eventually we arrived - amidst oohhs and aahhs of the people who hadn't been there before, as they saw reg's 17th Century (I think) Hunting Lodge for the first time. Everyone wandered out into the garden, where we sat at the table in preparation for the evening's barbeque.

Here's the main house on the left, and the cottage on the right. Reg is currently restoring both to their former glory, a plan which he expects to take 10 years!

As you might imagine, it turned into a very late night indeed before we turned in for a well-earned rest. We had made it, despite the best efforts of the weather Gods to stop us!

It turned out that Kevin and Sheila and Ivan and Paula has left again the previous day, to try and beat the bad weather home. We were all relatively unconcerned if we got locked down for a few days, so felt no inclination to rush. The next day we did a little shopping in La Fleche, and Reg started ferrying Mogas back to the field for us so we could all fuel up for two thirds the price of Avgas. That evening saw us eating a very fine (and rather hot) prawn curry, then playing an insidiously addictive card game based around motoring. I can't even remember what it was called, but we played it for hours - more and more loudly as the wine levels dropped in the decanters!

Time to go home

The next day, we decided to start heading back. It was never going to be an early start, but then everyone had a go in the Kiss before we left, so we were then into late afternoon! I think this is Chris taxying in with me in the back.

Here we are on the ground at Bernay, having planned a flight back to Abbeville which was the reverse of the original plan I published on the Wight Party web-site - you remember? The one we never actually flew in the end? Well, it was apparent from the outset we would be pushing it to try for Abbeville in what was left of the day, so when we landed at Bernay for fuel, we pitched the tent then booked into the (deserted) restaurant. Good job we did book too, because by the time we ate it was chock-full of locals! Very fine food, although mini-me came over all faint at one point. We never did find out why, but we did all eat both his courses between us, and an hour later he was right as rain, if a little hungry!

The final night under canvas saw Sunday morning dawn bright and clear again (front? what front!), so we set off to Abbeville. The GPS came into it's own, allowing us to skirt the Le Touquet CTA very closely, cutting a few miles off the journey perhaps.

After landing and filing our flight plan, we were channel bound once more, in conditions that were deteriorating by the minute (Oh, that front!). The day had started with such promise, but the cloud was down to around 600-1000' and the air was getting a little 'lively'. We all circled the lighthouse at Cap Gris Nez for 5 minutes to allow Chris to catch up, then struck out for Dover. That cloud cover clearly wasn't going to shift, but we were making 60 mph ground speed, and the engine had not hiccupped on me once all week, so I just enjoyed the flight. This is where we got my favourite pictures of the whole trip, almost exactly in mid-Channel.

Eventually, Dover came into view. We had planned on some formation flying along the cliffs to get some video, but the batteries in Sam's camera packed up in the cold, so we headed West along the coast before cutting inland to Headcorn. Mini-me did get a couple of nice shots of Dover though. One of the harbour and one of a random road junction which he just though looked nice from the air!

The cloudbase was playing the squeezing game again, and we battled some atrocious conditions back into Headcorn, where a someone doing incessant touch and go's obviously had an amplified radio, judging by the deafening quality of his calls. No real problems though, and we all got down safely.

The last leg

After closing the Flight Plan and filling in the customs forms, we set off again on what was the last leg of a fairly epic journey (well, it was epic to me and mini-me anyway!).

Colin and Sam had 2 hours to go to get back to Beccles, but Mike and Chris only about an hour to Gravely, going almost overhead my home strip (Frieze Hall) after 30 minutes. It was a no-brainer for them to stop off for a quick coffee and smoke break - although it was black coffee as the milk in the clubhouse had evolved into a new life form!

We've swapped contact details, and I hope to see them all again soon. In fact that goes for anyone I met over the whole week. I certainly intend to be more of a cross country man then a local flyer, although the staggering amount of fuel I consumed this week will force me to impose a budget on myself (just like every other Microlighter has too, I'm sure!)

The Autopsy

66 people in 44 aircraft expected in the Loire.

10 people in 6 aircraft actually made it, and what a grand craic we had too! Reg had built two huge barbeques out of oil drums to cater for the numbers, and probably lost a booking for training due to the student cancelling after hearing there would be 66 other people there (and who could blame him?). Reg is philosophical, as he wouldn't expect people to fly in conditions they are unhappy with.

Should we have even tried, given the weather? Possibly not! I had 45 hours logged when I started the trip and about 65(ish) hours logged now (yet to write up the log from my notes). That 20 hours contained just about every kind of flying possible, from perfect to downright scary. This was without a doubt the finest adventure of my life so far, and the overall experience is one I intend to repeat again and again.

What effect will this have on my flying in the future?

Stuff that didn't fit anywhere else

Here are some air-to-air shots, which I have no idea where they were taken, but are good enough to reproduce:

Well, that's it I guess.......until the next time.

Postscript

Having checked the carb needles, and moved the circlip from the lowest slot to the centre slot, the fuel consumption has dropped to around 17 litres per hour in cruise at all up weight. EGTs are still far too low, so I'm going to move the circlip to the top notch, then do some extended ground runs at cruise revs, keeping an eagle eye on the EGTs!

Thanks to all the people who offered me help and advice in various forms, and perhaps one day I will be able to reciprocate.

My particular thanks to Frank "My tent's big enough" Spiniello, for making the most of the umbrella gag ;-D

PS Frank is the organiser of Wingspan 2003, which is an event celebrating the centenary of the first controlled, powered flight by the Wright Brothers. Visit the web-site and register to join the fun!

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